The guilt of not grading as fast as I should often sits heavy in my mind from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. It’s a guilt I am familiar with. To be honest, I often struggle grading and giving feedback as fast as I know students need it. When I think about grading, I get increasingly more anxious, bite my nails, and decide to do anything that might be productive other than a task involving judging. Constant back pain and dizziness thanks to all the video calls COVID has brought to my life is not making me a faster grader either.
I often avoid grading and writing because they both involve what I perceive to be one-sided judgment. I judge myself when I write, and I fear being judged. And as much as I love reading my students’ work, I often avoid grading because I wonder what the student will say when they read my comments. I wish I could just tell them what I think and have a conversation.
Something about writing comments and adding a numerical grade without having an immediate opportunity to engage in conversation feels unnatural. It gives the teacher too much power.
Sure. I can tell you if your work meets student learning outcomes, but wouldn’t it be best if we could talk about it? What if my written comments get ignored? What if they are misunderstood? What if students disagree? Of course, they can email and meet me to discuss their work. In fact, I chat with students daily about their work, their learning process, and their questions. However, I wish I could make the grading process more participatory from the beginning. I wish that instead of grading, I could meet with each student individually and go over their work, but there isn’t enough time in the day for that.
This quarter I almost set up both of my classes based on contract grading, but at the very last minute, I got worried it would generate too much confusion, and I left things the same. You could also say that I chickened out, but that might be just me being a little tough on myself. I can see that. I didn’t go gradeless this quarter because I worried it would fail and confuse students.
And see? This fear puzzles me. I have been reading and learning about contract grading and gradeless approaches to teaching for a while now. I’m convinced it is a better approach. I even graduated from a college that did not do grades, and I loved it. Each class I took ended with a one to two-page long evaluation written by my professor; I also had to write a page-long evaluation for them at the end of the term.
At my college, we were given multiple opportunities to learn a concept. When some of us in a political economy class failed a microeconomics test, we got tutored and were given other opportunities to take it until we demonstrated we understood the concepts being taught. When my work needed to be revised, there was no grade attached. Instead, I could meet my peers and my professor and get feedback, then redo my work. When I tell these anecdotes to friends who have not experienced a more inclusive higher education, they are often surprised. I want to set up my courses in a way that learners can focus on their learning and not on grades.
So here I am—avoiding grading as I write and process my thoughts on writing and grading anxiety. Two things are clear to me. First, the fear of being judged or “not doing things right” is paralyzing. I am at least noticing, naming it, and moving on. That’s a start. Second, I am going to change my approach to grading next fall and try something different. If there’s one thing I am learning from this pandemic is that this is a time when I can no longer avoid vulnerability and change.
Educator in Draft Mode 
